Darby Saxbe

So there's just a lot of variability.

My first birth was pretty straightforward.

But the second one, I lost a lot of blood.

It got complicated.

And my husband was terrified.

And I still hold that against our son, you know, every so often.

Clean your room.

That's right.

Yes, you've made up the debt.

We, in our lab, scanned men whose partner was midway through pregnancy.

We then scanned the men again about six months after birth.

And we found that men's brains were losing gray matter volume.

Which is probably reflecting a process of streamlining and pruning and becoming more efficient.

Exactly.

And the brain shrinks at other windows in the lifespan, too.

So in early childhood, we're in this kind of stage of lots of exploration and tons of inputs.

And then as the child kind of gets ready for school age, the brain is actually losing great amount of volume.

And it's becoming more streamlined and kind of canalized along certain pathways.

So it reflects a process of learning.

It's like you're consolidating.